A blog on crisis communications best practices, emergency information and social media in emergency management ... an open forum for exchanging ideas and experience on emergency info and SMEM..
THE OPINIONS EXPRESSED WITHIN ARE MINE AND DO NOT REPRESENT OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT POLICY OR THE VIEWS OF MY EMPLOYER.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

On reaching out and expanding the use of SM in EM

SM in EM or SMEM ... Social Media in Emergency Management can be many things: a philosophy, a cause to champion, an online community (if you add the # in front = #smem), a starting point, an end point ... In truth, it's all those things. You can find out more at: www.sm4em.org If you visit the site, you'll see a blog post that give me the inspiration for this current entry.

The common element in all the people that have joined the #smem on Twitter and those who take part in our #smemchat on Fridays, is the belief that we call all better serve our clients, citizens, stakeholders by integrating social media into our emergency management practices/programs. While we all have a common vision, we don't necessarily agree on the best way to achieve ... and that's great!

There is always a danger that those ahead of the curve, to get isolated from the rest of their fellow EM practitioners. That silo approach is easy to understand: you congregate with people who share your ideas. However, we must endeavour to break down barrier by sharing and conversing with those who don't.

That will be the only way to expand SMEM beyond those who have adopted SM currently and move towards full acceptance (in doctrines such as IMS/NIMS, official guidelines and procedures). The debate should not be about what the #smem community is about or how the hashtag should be used.
The real conversation needs to be how we share our enthusiasm, knowledge base and lessons learned with the entire EM and first responder communities.

It comes down to this simple truth: we have to match the public. They are already reaching out to one another, creating crisis maps, exchanging data. Where are we in that equation as official organizations?Or do we mine the fabulous data out there during a disaster? To help with the response and the recovery efforts?

Every citizen with a cell phone (with GIS/GPS tech) is a potential source of data ... a mobile sensor ... an extra damage assessment tool ...

Realizing this phenomenon and using it to better our response ... to give ourselves a "community-based" situational awareness or operating picture ... (it's not a common operating picture anymore ... it's multiple, organic, cloud and crowd-based pictures ... a citizen-created mosaic ...) ... that's the key to a bright and relevant future for emergency management and crisis communicators.